What’s to Come

You might have also asked yourself, is this how The Link actually sees queer identity?

Well, no, but to break away from the tired Valentine’s Day formula this year, we decided to throw some kink your way.

In keeping with the season, we stripped down to the basics of exploring queerness, identity and politics—while also enjoying the politics of pleasure.

While we recognize that kink is only one facet of queer identity that not everyone embraces, it’s still important to explore this aspect of a vast and varied community, and shine a light on the issues so often left unspoken or shrouded in taboo.

This isn’t about being provocative for the sake of being provocative. This is about embracing desire, being honest about our carnal kinks and letting the freak flags fly.

When The Link’s first Gay Issue was published 30 years ago, it was provocative. It moved people. It wasn’t common for a non-gay publication to embrace gay issues in a positive way. And as a result of our thinking outside the hetero cisgendered box, people negatively reacted to the issue by dumping piles of the paper in stairwells—some went so far as to send rape threats to the issue’s coordinator.

Today, we live in a different world.

Not only have the attitudes towards LGBTQ people changed dramatically, but it’s no longer acceptable behaviour—at least in the college-going bubble we live in—to proudly discriminate.

This is not to say that there isn’t work to be done and progress to be made, of course. Trans and gender-queer people still face significant amounts of daily harassment and intolerance not only from other individuals, but from the institutions that are supposed to protect them.

This judgment of so-called difference also applies to those you choose to fuck.

In highlighting our kinks, subverting the taboos and celebrating a plurality of sexual desires, we attempt—in the same pioneering spirit of coordinators before us—to push boundaries and break stereotypes.

We hope this special issue encourages you to embrace your inner kink—or at least better understand those that do.